


Sacrifices

by oceansinmychest



Category: Hereditary (2018)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Character Study, Drabble, Grief/Mourning, One Shot, POV Second Person, Paranormal, Supernatural Elements, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 05:19:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15260262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: You visit your son while he sleeps.





	Sacrifices

**Author's Note:**

> I adore this movie. I hadn't felt so unnerved in awhile from a horror flick. Fear naturally inspired me.
> 
> For this, I listened to "Suspiria" By: Goblin on repeat.

Your name is Annie Graham and you’ve outlived all the anagram jokes.

You’re a good wife. You take your pills. Swallow them with a swig of water, but somehow, you manage to wake up at three AM with a grudge to kill. This is the defilement of a REM sleep cycle. You never expected your baby to be decapitated. A little, blue casket haunts your dreams. The autopsy mentioned her nut allergy. _We’re all nuts,_ you think, mildly consoled by irony.

Groggy and in pain, your hand drags across the floorboards of Charlie’s treehouse. Your face rivals candlewax:  oily, clammy skin in the grim, violent light of the night. How you wish you could shrivel in the red heat like a raisin in the sun. 

_Charlie, Charlie, Charlie._

A pathetic whimper dies within your throat. Hot, angry tears assault your watery blue eyes. The pendant bangs heavily against your chest, bangs like a tree branch against the windowpane of your childhood home.

One rung at a time, you climb down the ladder. Shakily, you approach the front door. Tonight, you don’t hide in your car. You confront the ghosts head-on in the most passive-aggressive way imaginable. That’s what makes a mother’s grief all consuming. 

With a twist of your wrist, you turn the doorknob and pad inside, your bare feet dirtied by the grass and pavement outside. The floorboards creak. Your home fuels every horror trope. Your damaged heart squeezes. When you clutch your chest, it feels like a heart attack. Paranoia, paranoia, taints your veins.

Winding down the twisted hallways, you ignore the gallery again. You swear you hear a clucked tongue. Cluck, cluck. Pop, pop. Your eyes readjust to the dark. Living in a house of glass (in the metaphorical sense, your family was your glass ceiling, not your salvation), building dollhouses allowed you to control the situation. When you made this place a home with Steve, you thought it a fairytale vision: this spot in the woods, isolated from society.

Now it dawns on you that the dolls in the house you built are just marionettes on a string with forces beyond your control. The spirit of a devil king compels you all.

A heavy sigh consumes you. Your body doesn’t take you to the master bedroom, but elsewhere. There, you know that your husband would only snap his fingers at you, his glasses banished to the nightstand, only to command – **demand** – that you _stop_ sleepwalking. The love of your life refuses to believe you.

Steve brands you with false psychosis.

No one knows the extent of your suffering. Restless and destined for a downward spiral, you find Peter numb, stricken by trauma, hidden beneath the covers.

Your mother stuck her shriveled, deranged claws into Charlie long before you had the courage to stand up from her. Maybe you should have let her have the boy - your _son_ \- instead

In the doorway, you clamp a hand over your mouth. Memories flit back to the years of high school angst and petty drama. Greek Tragedy remains a staple of English Lit 101. Now, in the dark, you wonder how did Iphigenia give away so much?

You wished you could have spared your children of such a wicked fate.

Teeth scrape at the inside of your cheek. Nerves pinch. It hurts, but it’s not enough to jolt you out of this phase. Despite the way his lips flatline, you still picture him _sneering_ at you. That vindictive piece of shit. Your imagine him on fire, your hands around his throat, until these malicious thoughts make you nauseous.

You would never do that to your baby boy.

You love him.

You love him and the revelation makes you sob all over again.

**You loved your family so much. You didn’t mean to coat them in paint thinner.**

You tried, you tried, you FUCKING tried!

Peter no longer sleeps soundly. Wide-eyed and petrified, he shrinks away from you, as if you hold the tin of his undoing all over again. As if you strike the match and throw it onto his mattress. You smile, but it’s so fucking plastic.

Here lie your condolences, you mouth the words: _I’m sorry. Go back to sleep, honey._

Your fingers flex and form claws as you tug up the thick comforter and press it against his scrawny neck. He whimpers and you keep smiling despite your tears.

Some traits, like illnesses, are hereditary.

Silently, you pivot on heel. You leave as quietly as you came.

Tomorrow, you’ll visit Joan. She’ll tell you about the ritual, she’ll start your life anew.


End file.
